My twelve year old is definitely a Millennial.
He loves technology, understands, takes it apart and rewires it. After myself, my husband, and my two oldest boys have all tried to simply get the TV back onto the TV after watching Netflix here on the Wii, we must eventually call T down to fix it, which he does with a I-can't-believe-you-can't-do-this shake of his head and two seconds later it's done. Of course since he has rewired everything where only a Mage of the Thirteenth Level can figure it out, I'm thinking it's not because I'm too old to get it. He's even gone to his friend's house where their cable has been out for days and inspects their router and fixes the problem. His brain functioning in this is a little frightening. I only hope he learns to use his power for good.Anyway, the gamer's ultimate game Minecraft is T's passion. He loves it. I've heard him explaining how to set things up in there with the exasperation of an old man. He has his own Minecraft server.
"What is a server?" I ask.
"So people can go to my server and play the game through my server even when I'm not there."
"And why is that important?"
"Ah, Mom. You just don't get it."
He's right. I don't get it at all. But I helped him get his server. He's thrilled with it and feels important.
Needless to say, he's on his server, playing Minecraft alot, leading his friends through the worlds as they play together through their headphones.
So hearing him talking in his headphones is a normal occurrence at our house. However, yesterday, the talking seemed different, less action, more monotone when I passed. So being the nosy-must-know-everything-that-my-kid-is-doing-on-the-Internet type Mom, I ducked my head in.
He was reading.
About four of his friends were all on CreepyPasta (at their own homes with headphones) taking turns reading these scary stories.
My son who doesn't like reading.
My son who has dyslexia.
My son was taking the lead, reading out loud to his friends who were all reading along together because "reading the stories alone is too scary". Like one of his friends could reach through the monitor and save him.
I'm thrilled. Yes, reading. I want my kids to have a love of reading! Does it matter that it is urban legend scare-your-pants-off stuff? No. Who doesn't like those? Am I ready to start thrusting books in T's face like Nightlife because if he likes Jeff the Killer, he'd love Slashback. Then again, I know I can't get too pushy, too let's-bond-over-this right this second, kay, kay?
So I closed the door, did a quiet knuckle-tap (which I know, yeah, yeah, fifty-year-olds aren't suppose to do--not cool) and am letting the bond-over-this opportunities come natural as I leave my copies of Rob Thurman's book out in surreptitious locations. Oh that? It's just a book about monsters with sharp metal teeth who can open up doorways to other worlds... Kinda scary though.
